The present invention relates to a vehicle lamp which can be employed suitably as a stop lamp of a type generally referred to as a "high mount" stop lamp or the like which is mounted on the rear part of a vehicle body and which is used to give a warning light signal to the following vehicle when braking.
In recent automobiles, as shown in FIG. 22, a stop lamp 3 is fitted in a protruding rear end portion of a rear spoiler 2 mounted on the upper surface of the rear part of a vehicle body 1, whereby during braking the stop lamp 3 is turned on to give a warning light signal to the following vehicle to prevent an accident or collision. (See Japanese Unexamined Published Utility Model Applications Nos. 190779/1986 and 190780/1986.) The rear spoiler 2, which is provided to decrease the lift of the rear part of the vehicle body to thereby improve the road performance of the vehicle, is elongated laterally of the vehicle body and is wing-shaped in section. Accordingly, the stop lamp 3 has a lamp unit which is belt-shaped so that it can be fitted in an elongated recess formed in the protruding rear end portion of the rear spoiler 2. A number of light-emitting diodes are employed in the lamp unit as light sources.
In the conventional stop lamp of this type, the front and rear surfaces of the front lens forming the lamp body are planar. Therefore, the control of the direction of the emitted light is generally insufficient. That is, the rays of light emitted from the light emitting diodes, after passing through the front lens, extend rearward of the vehicle body in all directions, obliquely upward, obliquely downward, sideward, etc. That is, the larger part of the emitted light is wasted, making the stop lamp insufficient in luminance when viewed from behind the vehicle body.
In order to overcome this difficulty, a stop lamp has been proposed in which inner lenses are arranged inside the front lens to control the direction of the emitted light. However, the stop lens is still disadvantageous in that, due to the presence of the inner lenses, the number of components and the number of manufacturing steps are increased as much, and the stop lamp is high in manufacturing cost.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide a vehicle lamp in which the above-described difficulties accompanying a conventional vehicle lamp such as a stop lamp have been eliminated, and the directions of the emitted light are controlled by a simple construction, whereby the illumination effect is improved.